ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the agnostic over both clinical relations between weight and health and how good looks align with either slimness or ampleness. It discusses the pressure around body image to historical precedents. There are also pictorial values that might be clinched with larger expanses of flesh, where the greater linearity of slim bodies might not have fitted so well with the technique and compositional emphasis of the artist. Artists have increasingly explored the perspectives, from the candid self-portraiture of Jen Davis – using her bulky body to deconstruct the fake introspective archetype of beautiful model – to the critique of exercise regimes in the work of Jodie Whalen. In one video, Whalen performs her exercises to orders barked out by a militant coach, perhaps her personal trainer. Whalen herself is not obese but of generous proportions; she would fit into a Rubens painting but not a contemporary fashion magazine.
